OK: Dems Hope to Beat Polls, If Not GOP

By David Brown
Oklahoma, which hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson, was all but written off by the Obama campaign this season. But Democratic Party officials there say they'll beat the polls, even if they don't beat the Republicans.

Polls for much of the fall have Obama getting about 32 percent of the Oklahoma vote, possibly a little more. But that doesn't feel right to Ivan Holmes, the 70-year-old Democratic party chairman.

"I haven't seen anything like this since John Kennedy ran for president," he said. "Young people are just crazy all over the state. I just can't believe that he's going to get what the polls show."

The party registered 25,000 new young voters as Democrats in the last three months. There was such enthusiasm that the state paid for the printing of 55,000 yard signs, where were given away almost instantly. Holmes is predicting that Obama will get 40 to 45 percent of the vote, which would almost count as victory in his eyes.